


at night we walk into our houses and burn

by twistedingenue



Series: Basic Bitches [6]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Mentors, distressed relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy doesn't smoke, Natasha's doing that thing where she's wigging her out by talking to her mother, and family is just freaking complicated all around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place immediately following [ We walk in the world of safe people](http://archiveofourown.org/works/505286/chapters/888651) and it will not make sense if you don't read that one first.

_But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,_  
 _We don’t like to make our passions other peoples concern,_  
 _And we walk in the world of safe people, and at night we walk into our houses and burn._

Darcy sits with her knees up, tipping her head so that the crown hits the wall behind her, and takes a drag off the cigarette she bummed off of someone in accounting. It’s chilly for May, and she didn’t realize that (when you live where you work, jackets are fairly optional) and even though she knows it is a total sham, all in her head, not true at all, it fills her with warmth and she closes her eyes to reach into it.

“You don’t smoke,” Jane cleans a spot next to Darcy off with her sneaker, her upper lip curling in slight disgust, “Known you for years now, you don’t smoke.”

“Have in the past. Usually when I’m really wasted. Been a few years.” Darcy replies, keeping her eyes closed “Makes each one precious.”

“Who did you get it from?”

“I tried Steve first, because he sneaks them from time to time. Battlefield conditioning stays with you, but he’s also got this thing about women smoking and how it’s vulgar. If he weren’t so adorable, I’d slap him for the double standard. But I caught someone in the elevator coming up.” It’s nice to talk about something that doesn’t actually matter, “Don’t worry, it’s not like a new hobby or anything. Just sometimes….”She trails off, not really wanting to finish the sentence at all.

Because it really is just a stress habit right now, because when she inhales and blows out smoke, she steps back, doesn’t have to focus on the mess she’s found for herself. Her breath turns regular and deep, and she can finally calm the fuck down even if for just a few minutes.

“You okay, Darce?” Jane worries. Jane worries so much when she gets her own head clear, which is why it’s probably a good thing that it’s usually full of science and Thor and being happy-stressed.

Darcy huffs out a snort in response and tries to get back her breathing pattern, “No, as has been repeatedly pointed out to and for me. You know I thought it would be great to have so much going on, keep everything moving. I could prove to myself that I…I could belong with all of you. And I am good at this, I really am and it’s just all falling apart in front of me. I can’t even keep myself out of the gossip rags.” She finally gets the courage to look at Jane, look at her concerned face and not blow either real or metaphorical smoke at it.

“How are you and Clint?” Jane says, almost too quiet to hear, as if she’s afraid of the answer.

“Talking. Sleeping in the same bed most nights, we’ll mend.” Darcy is sure of this like she knows that the sun will rise tomorrow. It only contains a small irrationality, and it's one where even when you don’t have much proof for it, you are going to believe that it will anyways. She breaths deep, holds it in, lets it roll around. She’s glad she doesn’t do this often, doesn’t want to lose sight of the way it feels, “I’m going to head to my parents for a little while. He’s not coming with this time.” She smiles sadly, “He’s handling some mission in god knows where, can’t even see me off. Natasha’s going to go with me to meet my train. Wants to walk it.”

Natasha wanting to walk with you somewhere is code for Natasha wants to lecture and possibly shop with you but not want to admit she’s being friendly.

“That’s good, that’s real good then.” Jane then admits, “Sometimes I like getting away without Thor. Love him but he’s so…” she holds her arms out wide and wider, “He’s just always there and focused and real. And I wonder how anyone could be so self-possessed, and I’ve seen him doubting himself.”

“That’s what you get for practically being married to a god, bosslady.” Darcy takes the last bit of the cigarette and savors it, because it’s the last for a long time, before she puts it out. She’s a good citizen and field strips it before pocketing it. She rests her head on Jane’s shoulder, boney as it is, and Jane takes a bit of her weight.

“So why the alley tonight?”

“Everyone knows to look for me on the roof,” Darcy laughs genuinely into Jane’s shirt, her load just that much lighter.

                                      ****

Natasha is unnervingly quiet as they walk. Most of the time when you know Natasha is around and she’s not pretending to be herself (Darcy’s glad that she doesn’t have a alias for the world at large, it would be exhausting) and she’s quiet, you are unnerved anyways. It’s not entirely her fault, though. Once you know who she is, you can’t stop thinking about what might be going on inside of the spy-ninja-fucking scary ass woman’s brain. Which probably is a running log of all the various ways she can cut and run or harm anyone in her surrounding area.

Okay, that was probably a little much on the trying to figure out what’s going on inside of Natasha’s brain. Because it is actually nice to walk with Natasha and not have anyone trying to ask her if she’s okay, if she and Clint are making nice and speaking something other than sarcasm to each other, or about her appearance in several gossip rags. Darcy wishes Weekly World News was still around so that she could be linked up to Bat Boy, instead of now being linked with anyone else she dares to venture outside ever since some pap caught a distressed moment between her and Clint.

Oh, now she gets the silence, “So what are you wanting me to think about Tasha?”

Natasha blinks, “Actually, I wanted to you to give this to your mother for me,” she reaches in her bag and hands her a small package.

Okay now this is disturbing and she actually stops and stares at Natasha after automatically accepting the package, “You talk to my mom?”

“She’s a very nice woman, I quite enjoy our discussions. She’s looking forward to your visit Darcy. She thinks you work too hard. I don’t disagree, looking after the idiots must be tiring.” She offers a small smile.

“I’m not sure I like that idea of you and my mother being friends.” Darcy crinkles her brows together but laughs, “But I can imagine that you started it?”

“No, she found me.” Her smile broadens, “I do so enjoy people who can find my contact information. And before you ask why, it’s your fault. You told her that I like listening to your phone calls. So she decided that I needed some of my own after we were introduced to the public. You are a very lucky woman Lewis, she loves you dearly and she’s willing to share that love with anyone you deem important.”

“The last time I saw her,“ Darcy begins and her own words startle her, “She said that Montgomery women could always handle what life throws at them. And I don’t…I feel like I’m letting her down and admitting defeat. And a little like I’m crying home for it.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything, just gets them moving again. It’s the heart of the issue, though. Darcy keeps going because that’s what she does, move through the strife of it all and hurts so damn much when she stumbles and falls from its weight. She hasn’t even been able to admit this to Jane or Clint, but she’s scared of letting her family down, and cracking seems better than admitting failure. At least when you crack, you go down fighting.

Three pinpricks of light fly past them, close enough to them that even Darcy understands it to be the warning shot across the bow. The next won’t miss. When they hit something solid they explode, sending fire and sparks across the city sidewalks. Most of the passersby’s are fine, but a few are shedding clothes in an attempt to stop growing flames.

One idiot is on fire and texting at the same time, until he is knocked to the ground and rolled around.

Natasha pulls out her pistols from who knows where and hands one over to Darcy before the next set of flaming fucking projectiles lands just shy of them and they get a good look at just what is being used. The tech isn’t the same as SHIELD uses, or even the homegrown that Clint’s developed, but it’s trick arrows, explosive and fire tipped.

Barton boys all be trouble and trouble always finds Darcy when she least needs it.

Natasha finds the line of sight first and starts firing, while Darcy is a little more concerned with getting the civilians (and when did she start thinking of normal, everyday people that way?)  moved out of the way and into a safe area. More and more of the arrows are flying now, and the person behind them must be on the move, as they start coming from a new direction.

A few more explosive tipped arrows fly into a building nearby, and Darcy immediately takes off to evacuate with a nod from Natasha. She registers that a few more arrows have passed her by, and that they aren’t exploding but opening and releasing some weird little army of robotic and shiny bug-things. Spiders, but not with the right amount of legs.

The building seems to be the usual sort, multi-office, boring straight down to beige and red carpeting, the type that she sees everywhere. The bottom floor green atrium is the only distinguishing feature, and all the office space is built around it.

The first wave of screaming people stream out of a third floor office, and alarms start going off. So basically, Darcy feels like a fish going upstream, because she’s heading to that third floor office to figure out what is so damn important that they had to start blowing it up.

She doesn’t see the fist coming towards her until it’s hitting her straight on, but she only stumbles a little bit before returning the blow. She returns a little blindly though, but it’s good enough to knock back the guy so she can get a look at him.

It’s like, central casting for goons, because he is plain and hits like a brick and dressed in black. And so are his friends coming up around him. Her gun is knocked out of her hand and she barely tracks it before throwing one of her attackers over the rail. One down, but they aren’t attacking like movie ninjas and she’s going to run out of luck eventually.

She’s too close to the railing herself, she’s being surrounded, and she has no place that she can go to get out. She fights off as long as she can, and out of the corner of her eye sees a small steady stream of kids in uniforms running down staircases, two and three steps at a time and they distract the attacking goons. Long enough to distract them that by the time they notice the arrows sticking out of them, they are already felled.

They are normal, even underpowered arrows, with store-bought shafts and tips, and each shot had to have been rapidly fired from a nearby spot to have enough power to incapacitate. Wait, they aren’t dead, who does she know that uses arrows and doesn’t shoot to kill?

Darcy looks out over the railing to see Kate running in her prep school uniform on the top of the railing, pulling her bow and firing every so often at the guys now chasing after her. She jumps off the rail and somehow manages to divert and roll herself onto the second floor. Darcy contemplates pulling the arrows out of the flesh, but…they aren’t dead and that might actually kill them. She picks up the few that missed and finds her gun and starts running.

Darcy does shoot to kill, though. And that doesn’t faze Kate.

“What are you even doing here?” she asks when they meet up, Darcy handing over the arrows.

“Would you believe field trip?” Kate says honestly.

“And you had-”

“I had team practice straight after.” That’s right, Kate’s still on the archery team at her school. Kate’s actively tracking as the last of the students leave the building and she releases some tension in her shoulders when the last looks up, terror and admiration in his expression.

Kate’s return is pure teenager, curling her lip and pointing at the door before sticking out her tongue. The kid, who has to be younger, salutes her.

“That was…thank you Kate.” Darcy says, wiping sweat from her brow. From one of the windows she can see flashes of light and color, knows the rest of the team (minus Clint, because he’s in some country that ends in stan). She can even hear Thor, directing people to a safer place in him booming voice. But so much for making her train. That’s always the first thing shut down after one of these ordeals. She’ll steal one of Tony’s cars, maybe even with his permission, when this is over.

“What use is talent if you don’t use it to help people?” Kate says, between halting breaths. Slowly, Kate evens out her breathing, “Did I? I just hurt them right?”

Darcy’s image of Kate sort of tilt shifts in her brain, and stops seeing Kate in the guise of her cousins, stops seeing her as an arrogant brat used to getting her way, and sees through that to what Clint must really see. Bravery and gusto sure, but also concern. She’s got some freaking leadership skills if she can corral and get a class full of other teenagers moving, and in a way that got the guys with guns and fists to look away.

 And she has that tuned sense of ethics that Darcy once said was common to the Avengers, writ large on her face as she bites chews her lower lip waiting for a response. Darcy’s been too dismissive despite all the evidence pointing otherwise. “They won’t be getting up anytime soon, and they won’t be adventurers after this, but no, you haven’t killed anyone.”

There’s a rattling sound niggling at the back of her hearing, but when she looks out around them she doesn’t see anything.

“Good,” Kate says firmly, looking back up to the third floor.

“You should follow your classmates, Bishop. Go be a big damn hero to them, and someone will fix the damage later. Don’t sweat anything you’ve done. I’ve got to check that office out and I will be right behind —”

“I can come with you,” Kate objects quickly.

“I know you can, and trust me, someday you will. Today however, I need you to be the girl who stepped up and not my boyfriends protégée, okay?”

Kate nods, adjusts her uniform and heads down towards the door to let Thor direct her.

Darcy works her way up, ignoring the scuttling sounds because when she looks at where she swears she hears movement, there’s nothing there.

The office that was, well, exploded and invaded looks like a giant vacuum did a whirlwind suction to it. There’s nothing that she can make out, and she’ll have to have some of the agents on the cleanup team work and sort through it to see what was taken.

She’s halfway down the stairs when she finally catches sight of the little robots, climbing up the wall of a support beam. They are beginning to glow like the tips of the arrowheads, which is never, ever a good sign.

They start exploding from the floor up, and Darcy drops to most secure place she can find, but the floor starts giving way, the ceiling is coming to close and the building is falling down around her, the robots exploding from within the walls.  When she stops falling herself, it’s with searing pains in her body that she can’t pinpoint, blood dripping into her eyelashes alongside plaster, metal and paper.

There’s not much fire, she notes as the pain starts overtaking her, and she can hear herself whimpering, disconnected and tight until she gives in.

                                               *

Kate follows her classmates but gives them the slip after Thor winks at her, big and theatrical. She’s only got a couple of arrows in her quiver, but there has to be something she can do. She hoists herself up to a little higher ground; within range of where the Avengers are pretty much just cleaning up a bunch of little robotic spider things. Her few arrows aren’t going to do anything there.

However, it looks like Hulk is having a blast stepping on them.

“Be sure to save a couple, big guy! We need them to study!” Iron Man yells, Tony’s voice modulated by the suit, but the majority of them start exploding as a chain, each triggering the next.

A couple of arrows fly past her, but are blocked by Captain America’s shield. One of the things Barton has been teaching her is vantage points and sniper positioning, and she tracks the line of sight. She can see a shadow of a man, big and broad in a window.

“Well, it’s worth a shot,” she nocks an arrow, holds her breath as she pulls out and back, releases her hand and lets it fly and hit the man. She drops back down to ground level before he can spot her, before he can associate a uniformed schoolgirl with the person who hit him in the ass.

“Bishop?” She hears Cap yell over to her. Looks like the fighting is over, “What are you doing here?”

“I was…I was in the building over there for a field trip when it was like, invaded. I helped Darcy evacuate the building and fight off a few guys.” And for good measure she smirks, “Being a superhero is fun, everyone should try it.”

“Darcy was out here?” He uncharacteristically takes off his, what would it be called? Cowl is good enough, “I thought she was leaving today.”

“She must have gotten separated from the lady Widow.” Thor says, coming up behind him.

“What happened to her?” Kate looks around, not seeing the woman.  Hawkeye has this idea that Natasha should be teaching her things, but she’s still gathering the wherewithal to approach her. It’s not that Kate is afraid, but anyone with sense is at least intimidated by her.

“She’ll be fine, headache tomorrow, but one of those arrows knocked her out. Where’s Darcy now?”

Kate points in the direction of the office she came out of, “She was checking something out in there.” She watches the faces of the Avengers fall and she turns around, “Oh shit…” the building is decimated and fallen in on itself, “Oh Darcy you better have gotten out.” She pulls out her phone, has Darcy’s number because Barton made her put it in there. There’s no answer.

“Good idea, Bishop.” Steve says, Tony already flying over to the building, “We can listen for her phone going off. She always keeps it in her back pocket.” How does he know that? But then, it’s must be his job to know these things. She files this away for future consideration, but for now, her job is to keep calling Darcy as Rogers, Stark and Thor start scouring through the rubble.

She keeps it ringing until they finally uncover Darcy, breathing, but not moving, with blood pooling from a gash on her forehead into her eyelids and lashes, and Kate has to look away.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Three days on three different rooftops, and not even with a bow (distance requirement, bullets still beat arrows for that. Not to mention that an arrow is sort of a calling card) and even Clint’s focus can begin to wander. Wanders to the veiled way he left for the mission, barely a look back before he left in the middle of the night. A simple argument can fester and spoil something perfectly good.

“You are eventually going to have to talk about it. I know that there are things bothering you, Clint.” Darcy had said, probably about five times in the past week. She keeps pushing and pushing, and his brain gets too crowded to think properly.

“When aren’t there things bothering me?” He always replied, staring back with a bland expression. Great job, real A-plus behavior, because really, you can’t talk to the woman that said just a week or two earlier that she’d like to fucking marry you someday. He’s doing real good there.

Why would he ever want to pull someone else into his family? He’s the one with the brother actively trying to kill him and all the sins of the father coming home to roost.

_Calm your breathing, Barton, you can man up when you get home._

Movement through the open window, and a voice in his ear tells him that if a shot presents itself, to take it. Fire when ready, fire at will. He shakes out his legs, and then stills to focus only on the movement. No one but the maid, and he stands down.

“Yeah well, fucker, you aren’t responsible for your brother. He was supposed to be responsible for you.” Darcy doesn’t yell, because you never know who is actually listening up in the tower, but Clint can’t even look at her right, sees ghosts and blood behind her.

Darcy’s trying to set herself straight, making plans to go see her parents, slowly delegating her duties to her small staff. Clint’s even pulled a couple of strings, because no matter how stupid they are when trying to talk to each other, it’s not like he’s stopped caring, and found her a couple of decent junior agents who have a chance of wrangling the Avengers for PR. That small smile when she realized he had done that almost made him lose his gut.

“Talk to you? Tell you what’s going on with me? I can barely pin you down in a single spot, and when I do, you blow me off Darcy. Thousands of words do me no good if I can’t find you.”

She should have headed out yesterday, and if the op goes as planned, she wouldn’t be back until after him. Maybe he can get the words to come out right, maybe find some actual meaning in them and things can get back right. She’ll be in a better place to accept his fumbling attempts to talk; he’ll be in a better place to explain himself, offer up the infection to be mended.

More movement, but still just the maid. He doesn’t want this to go into a fourth day, weather reports have tomorrow cold and wet, and his site tomorrow is rooftop again. The chatter on the comm has his target in the building at least, and just spotted and spoken to by the agent undercover as a busboy in the hotel bar.

He doesn’t let his mind wander, but he compartmentalizes. One part of his brain focused through the sight, another trying to figure out what to say to Darcy, and another building a training schedule for summer with Bishop.

Bishop is going to be better than him someday, he can say that with pride, because he’s going to make her that way. She’s got bravery and courage to last three lifetimes, and she’s not even going to have to go through a period of time as a thief and freelancer before figuring out that there’s more to life than surviving.

It’s still not a good precedent, though, taking a woman barely not a kid, and letting her get her kicks by training up with an Avenger. What will happen when it happens next, when it isn’t a person with skill, but just an average teenager with more bravado than talent? There’s everyday courage but that’s not what he deals with, it’s not what Kate is practically filled and molded to be, to be bigger than one person.

They can’t let Kate out until she’s older or they are going to have a whole truckload of dead kids, and it’ll be on the Avenger’s hands.

The curtain opens, and his target steps out onto the balcony, making everything far too anti-climatic. It’s just moving his finger on the trigger and the target crumbles, and blood seeps and falls through the cracks in the wood paneling.

“Hawkeye to Radio One. Target eliminated. Packing up and heading to home base.”

“Slight change in plans Hawkeye,” The voice says, one of the handlers for the op. Complicated op on the ground side, even if it wasn’t for him, means multiple watchers, “Proceed immediately to extraction point.” The hair on the back of his neck pricks up, without even the cool breeze to excuse it.

“What’s going on Radio One?” Clint speeds up his pace, packing up the rifle, and shaking out his legs to get them moving again. But there’s only silence at the other end.

                                               *

Extraction wasn’t supposed to be a Quinjet. And while Natasha wasn’t supposed to be on the extraction team, her showing up isn’t entirely unprecedented. Her not piloting however is worrying. The various others not needed for clean up and cover detail agents settle in. Natasha is throwing them some vicious glares and they stay away from her and Clint.

“What’s going on Natasha?” he asks, studying her face, a blank canvas, but she’s fidgeting more than, more than she has ever fidgeted. “Nat, what happened?”

Clint, as a rule, doesn’t like thinking about the millions of ways that things go wrong every day. He can tell something happened, Natasha has a bruise on her head, and the way she’s holding herself, there’s something up with her shoulder.

“Yesterday, we responded to an attack that we are fairly sure was initiated by your brother. I was on the scene when it began with Darcy and…” the world is quiet, and his head rushes through all those millions of scenarios.

“Is she…” he trails off, trying to clear his head, as long as he knows the answer to this he can start figuring things out.

“No.” Natasha says with a bite of ferocity, and continues on with the known facts. Clint lets them wash over him, every heartbeat singing alive, alive, alive.

_*_

Darcy wakes with an astounding headache and also the strange sensation of being really floaty, and she can hear her mother’s resonant alto singing Mercy Seat, which she hasn’t heard in years.

“No wait,” says another voice, Jane, she thinks, “I think I know this song” and the two continue on together. Why are Jane and her mother in the same room?

“Ah! Whither could we flee for aid, when tempted, desolate, dismayed? Or how the hosts of hell defeat, had suff’ring saints no mercy seat?” Jane has a higher soprano than her mother. Her mother’s low voice always confounded her; she’s always spoken so soft and high-pitched. It should have been her first clue about her mother’s artifice. She listens out the song, keeping her eyes closed, because yeah, her head hurts.

“Hey, you could keep going, I wouldn’t mind.” She says after they stop singing, and it’s a little hard to talk, like her lungs can’t catch all the air they need, “It’s kind of nice.”

“Jane, press that call button,” Her mother says in an unaffected voice, “Darcy, listen carefully for a moment. What year is it?”

“2015,” Darcy says opening her eyes, “Oh hey, medical floor. Oh crap, medical floor.”

“They wanted me to have you a complete a phrase when you woke up all the way. It was…” Her mother wrinkles her face, “But now I can’t remember what that was supposed to be.”

“Tony Stark had a little robot, its microchips were gleaming bright?” Darcy really wants to close her eyes again, but Jane gets a panicked look on her face when she tries.

“Well that’s a good sign.” A doctor says coming into the room. “Do you remember what happened?” He takes a look at Darcy’s somewhat confused face, “Take whatever time you need.”

Darcy tries to move her hand, and hey, IV, that probably explain the floaty feeling, she has to be on some massive opiates. Still doing nothing for her headache though, it feels like someone dropped — “Did I fall through a building?”

“I think it’s a bit more accurate to say that the building fell on you.” Jane puts her hand over Darcy’s. Oh wow, yeah, there’s her memory and she recounts Kate running on the rails, non-movie ninja attackers, and exploding robotic spiders. Her mother, and oh goodness, her mother is here, this can’t be good at all.

“So what’s the damage doc?” She knows she’s seen him before, but damned if she can remember his name, even though she’s spent so much time on the floor.

He looks over Darcy, “You want it all at once?”

“Just tell me so I can sleep again.” She coughs and that hurts.

“Alright then, from the bottom; 2nd and 3rd degree burns on your feet, fractures to your right radial head – your elbow, and left forearm, smoke inhalation which we are in the process of treating— you’re going to find that it’ll get easier to breath over the next few days. We performed surgery for internal bleeding from the fall, stitched a number of gashes, and we were waiting for you to wake up to assess —”

“Good news, they don’t think you have a traumatic brain injury anymore.” Stark says from the hall, like he’s been there the whole time, “I told them, first she’d need to have one to be traumatized.”

“Basically, from what I’m getting from here is that you are very very lucky, and that you shouldn’t wear shoes that fall off.” Her mother says, shooting Tony a glare that distinctly says ‘this is my daughter and I will protect her, I don’t care that you are a billionaire’ and that’s sweet, and Darcy is really very tired.

She looks around the room, before shutting her eyes again. “Where’s Clint?” The response is muffled as she falls back asleep.

                                               *

He’s not allowed to skip the debriefing, not allowed to skip the initial wave of paperwork to complete. He’s trained at this, trained to push away his thoughts and emotions, a fucking professional. He’s never been a great professional, but he’s trying right now; but Darcy isn’t real until he sees her, hopefully can touch her. Alive is still pulsing through his veins, and guilt is building in his blood.

He answers the questions methodically, they’ve brought him to the Helicarrier rather than SHIELD HQ or the Tower, probably so that he wouldn’t disappear on them to get to Darcy.  Clint answers fully and expounds and expands at their suggestions, and it’s his fault that Darcy was even out that day. He drove her out of the city because he’s emotionally stupid, because he misjudged just how bad she was doing in holding together.

Natasha is holding him together right now. She’s confessed that she hasn’t seen Darcy since they uncovered her. No one argues with the Black Widow when she says she needs to go somewhere and didn’t meet with any resistance until she tried to get him pulled off the op and had to settle for moving up the time frame. By herself.

He loves that woman. Loves her in all of her dark places. Clint’s never prouder of Natasha than when she uses her skill out of loyalty and love, even though she’ll never admit to calling it that.

The debrief takes far too long and demands too much of his attention. Natasha’s waiting for him when he finally finishes.

“She woke up yesterday enough to hold conversations. Not for long periods of time, but she’s healing and that’s to be expected right now. Everyone’s taking turns sitting with her, and Stark’s put her mother up in a suite in the Tower.  Clint,” she says seriously, “She’s okay, she was even able to give a fairly detailed run down of what happened in the building that matched pretty well to what Ms Bishop synopsis.”

They haven’t done a full debrief with Kate yet, because she’s trying to look like a dumbstruck schoolchild in the wrong place, wrong time with the right materials and not a budding young SHIELD agent. Natasha shoves a bag into Clint’s hands. “Shower, shave and change. We will go straight to medical.” She looks right at him, and he knows she can read him better than anyone, and just sighs, “Clint, she will still be okay if you take the fifteen minutes to make yourself smell less like you bathed in eels.”

“That doesn’t even make sense Nat, why would anyone bathe in eels?” she shrugs, and he does smile at her attempt to bring him to the right kind of unbalanced, rather than unhinged. It’s a very fine line. She’s right though, he does smell and could use a shave. To the showers it is, and then, well, alive is still a bell in his head.

                                                        *

At a glance, Mary Montgomery Lewis is not intimidating anymore. Her hair isn’t up to the seventh heaven, maybe just the third, and that makes her affected high-pitched voice seem less than silly and more just pathetic. He had arrived just in time for Darcy to be taken for some sort of treatment for her lungs. Her lungs, he groans, Jesus. Neither of them were allowed to go up with her, and so he hasn’t even seen her yet.

He fills up every inch of the chair, hands and fingers templed in front of him, when Mary sits down next to him and drops her voice, “It’s not your fault, Clint.” And maybe her mother is just a little bit psychic. He hears rumors, that might be a thing now. “Darcy runs with the big dogs and it was bound to catch up with her at some point.”

He can understand why Mary plays with her voice, because Mary is all about creating an image for other people to perceive and underestimate. It took her all of ten minutes to get the read on exactly how he’s coping, which is really to say, not at all.

“I just don’t like being on this end of the waiting game.” He replies, not really knowing what to say or how to say it. How do you explain to your girlfriend’s mother that yeah, it sort of is my fault, because we’re all pretty sure it was my brother who was behind the whole thing, and not sound like a soap opera?

“From what she tell me you don’t like being on the other end either,” she states evenly, picking at her blouse, “but you are often there and that’s what loving you means. Picking up and holding on to the great and gruesome. Her exact words.”

That sounds like Darcy, not mincing but accepting. She’d been with SHIELD and the Avengers for a while before they started, knew what they were all about, seen them more the worse for wear. And she still signed on with him.

Someone else walks through the room, and Mary pitches her voice back up, “She doesn’t look pretty right now. Black and purple all over, arms are in casts, feet are, well, she wasn’t much of a runner before. I think she’ll be less of one now. But she’s real lucky, my little girl.” She starts to tear up and Clint puts an arm around her shoulder, “They told me she was evacuating the building, my little girl is so brave. And it’s not your fault she’s hurt, because she might be brave but she’s also far to unwilling to let the world rest on anyone else’s shoulders if she thinks she has to take it.”

The “even from people like you’ is unsaid. “How is she dealing right now?”

“Nothing like a Lewis on painkillers.” Mary sniffs, leaning over to pull a tissue from the box on the table in front of them and blowing her nose, “Just before she was wheeled out, she was yelling to turn of Banner’s Enya crap, she can sleep just find without it.”

“Oh good, yelly Darcy. I love yelly Darcy.” Clint deadpans and it does the trick, Mama Lewis goes from blowing her nose and sobbing to snorting in laughter.

She turns serious again when the no name nurse or agent or whoever leaves, and Clint has to smile at that. Mama Lewis has the soul of a sneak, “I know you two were having problems, but she’s been asking for you and when you were gonna get back since she woke up. Every time she’s awake. I like you,” she pokes him in the chest and it causes the bottle blond and only slightly bouffanted hair on her head to bounce, “So let me tell you this; it’s going to seem like everything is okay. It’s not. Whatever was going on still needs to be dealt with. Just give her a little time to heal.” She pauses before continuing, “Although with her, you might still want to talk it out while she’s on the drugs. She’s much easier when she’s all in a loop.”

                                               *

They finally let him in when she’s resettled in her private room. He’d manage to convince Mary that she should actually sleep in the guest room and here, let me get Captain America to escort you. It’s wonderful to see her eyes go big, as if Steve hadn’t taken his turn sitting with Darcy, but perhaps it’s different when you aren’t watching your daughter’s vitals. Steve’s only too happy to help out, and Mama Lewis alternates between ogling and well, mother henning over the soldier.

Darcy isn’t quite sleeping, not fully, not yet. But she’s in that space she gets where her breathing starts to even out, and she’s just zoned out with her eyes closed. He’s always loved her in that delicate stage, and seeing her reaching it now, even like this, that’s just icing.

The warning that she wasn’t pretty isn’t overwrought. He’s been worse, but not by much that didn’t include gunshot wounds. From what he can see, her arms are various stages and lengths of casts, there’s bruising and neat stitches peeking out from the hospital gown, and whole sections of her beautiful hair have been shaved off to tend to her head.

She’s alive and she’s beautiful, though.

“That’s a new look for you,” he says, because hey, jokes.

She startles to alertness, “I was thinking of getting a haircut anyways. Think this might be a bit too short though.” She bites her lips, her eyes tearing up. “Hey Barton, why don’t you stop blocking the door and get over here.”

He does. He wraps his hand around the fingers that stick out of her long arm cast; he catalogs the injury with the laundry list in his head. Radial, landed on her elbow. He tries to kiss her carefully, but even drug hazed, she’s demanding and when she’s done, not a moment earlier, he rests his forehead on hers, “Did you do this to catch up with me?” because, hey, it’s either joking or crying.

“I have a punch card to fill up. Two more major injuries and I get a free MRI.” She shakes her head, “That’s uncomfortable, don’t pull the stitching.”

Clint tries to find somewhere to touch that’s alright, but is coming up pretty short. Everything hurts, Darcy says, but I’m not caring too much about it right now. He doesn’t try to ask her how she’s doing, he’s been there before. How she’s doing is sucking. It sucks. He sits in the chair next to her bed, holding tight to her fingers, as she slips back asleep with a smile on her face when he murmurs that he loves her straight to her ear.

There’s a knock on the door, a quick and quiet rapping, and Natasha steps halfway through, “Kate’s being brought in for a full debrief. Did you want to watch or sit with her?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “I’ll review the tapes. You could?” He looks up in hope, “You don’t have to or anything, but…”

“I’ll be there.” Natasha interrupts, “I’m going to bring her by later.” She tilts her head, “It’s endearing. It’s like there’s two of you, she feels responsible for Darcy being hurt too.”

There is not enough brain in his head right now to process that bit of information, he’ll settle for the weight of Darcy’s fingers against his instead. “Thank you Natasha. For everything.”

Natasha merely nods, because not everything needs to be said.

                                      *

It’s been the watch Darcy sleep without feeling like a creeper show when Kate steps through the door, Natasha at her heels. Clint nudges Darcy awake.

“Oh wow,” Kate gasps under her breath, “How is it that you manage to look worse than when we found you?”

“As I said, it’s as if there are two of you.” Natasha comments wryly.

“It takes a lot of practice to look this miserable. I learned it from watching him.” Darcy says, squeezing Clint’s fingers, “Babe, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but your side of the family? I’m okay with not meeting them again.”

Clint closes inward, “I knew it was Barney.” He breathes out, “Okay. Everyone all right with me fucking disowning him? Think your family would have me Darce? Fuck being a Barton anymore.”

“Screw that,” she says, a weird look on her face, “Flood the Barton line with the good side of it.”  
  


Kate’s mouth drops with an exaggerated, “Oh.” And Clint realizes what that last exchange really was. Okay. He can work with that later. Then Kate perks up the side of her mouth, “I shot him in the ass. Does that help?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Mama Lewis and Jane sing is a verse from Mercy Seat, in particular the version by Anonymous 4. You can listen to it [here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n90FFSqOUuU)


	3. Chapter 3

 

“I’m not sure what I hate more, not having that much use of my arms, and let’s praise our deities of choice that I can at least grip things, or that my feet are quite frankly the most disgusting things on the universe.” Darcy complains and fidgets wherever she can. Healing is exhausting, but so is staying in one spot except to go to various treatments. SHIELD has some serious experimental shit for recovery, but she still had to have to surgery on one of her arms to fix the fracture, just like any other person. She feels huge with how much room she takes up, “And if I knock one more thing over….”

“Baby-girl, I am sure that if there is one thing anyone in this facility does not want to hear it is another whining hero.”  Her mother lectures. She’s looking more like herself these days; her hair heading it’s way up to heaven. Each day, it gets a little closer. Clint has been keeping track, marks against the doorframe. He’s doing it to make her laugh each morning, and it’s been working, “And it’s your feet that you hate more. You’ve never abided any problems on your feet well.”

“They certainly makes the case for far more sensible footwear all of the time, and bless all the cotton socks of the world.” Darcy is buying everyone 100% cotton and wool socks for Christmas now, the natural fibers protecting her feet and more importantly, not melting into her skin and causing worse damage. She doesn’t remember the fire, remembers that there wasn’t much before she passed out, but apparently there was one of those bug things close enough to really do some hurt. Cleaned up, there was less third degree damage than they thought at first; less grafting would have to be done later.

But for now, her feet are wrapped in dressings, more experimental shit that she agreed to, with hope that it will cut down on the recovery time. It’s the weirdest feeling though, the dead spots surrounded by furious pain that the painkillers can only seem to dull if she doesn’t want to be asleep all the time.

There’s a knock and the rehab nurse pops in, smirking at Darcy’s groaning displeasure. Dressing change and range of motion torture, since she can’t walk on her feet quite yet, and yeah, it’s needed, but it hurts.

“Did I see correctly you are returning home later this week?” the nurse asks, working at her feet. Darcy hisses and nods, “Who is going to be around most often then? Besides the normal appointments, you’ll need a few people who can work on scar massage and such.”

“Oh, uh, well, Clint will be around of course,” Darcy says, but bites her lip. No matter how much he’s been objecting, it’s been a week now, and there are already jobs and ops he’s rejected. He’s going to have to get back to work sooner rather than later. And there’s that whole saving the world thing, tracking down his brother, training Kate. His days are just packed.

Her mother looks up and away, “I have to get back to work, Darce. I’ve used up most of my days already,” there’s a modest bouquet from her office on one of the tables in the room, still bright and happy. She’s pretty sure the nurses have some secret ability to keep cut flowers alive.

“I figured that’d happen. There’s a whole bunch of people I can con into rubbing my feet. I mean what, I’ll have new skin over most of it in a couple of weeks and that’ll probably start feeling real nice.”

“You think this family is going to let you sit here by yourself?” Mary demands, “You’ve been living in this big city for far too long. You should know better and have a little family pride.”

“Oh right, because I’m going to ask Ronnie to come take care of me. She’s just as likely slip a knife in my back. She’d probably try to steal one from Natasha. Abby might at least come by at some point, though.” Abby is growing up in marriage. Someday she might become a real and caring person if she can get far enough away from her sisters. “I wouldn’t mind that. We only seem to see each other in ball gowns.”

Mary Lewis looks over her daughter, and Darcy fidgets more under the scrutiny, enough that the nurse taps her on her leg to focus, “Oh not that side of the family. You know, it is summer vacation for—”

“Oh god, no mom—” Darcy starts, really wishing she could raise her arms in distress and just no, she does not want to hear what comes next.

“Camilla Mae is more than capable of helping out when you and your Clint needs her too.”

“I’m...not sure she’s able to have the clearance.” Darcy says slowly, trying to figure out some way to persuade her mother that having yet another teenager running around the Tower was not going to be a good idea. Because, no. “Cammie is just, she’s a nice girl but….”

“I already spoke to, well,” Mary sighs in happiness, “Captain America. And he said that it was a wonderful idea, and that family should stick together when there is trouble. Such a good man.”  She preens over the whole excitement of having conversations with Steve, “What a looker. Tell me have you ever seen him without —”

“Mom, no.” Darcy repeats her words, the ones that her mother will hear but never listen to. She groans, her foot being stretched a little too far, “He’s such a fu-freaking boy scout.” She changes her words before her mother can give her a lecture on language and word choice.

“Darcy Anne,” she says, her voice tired and restless, “Your friends are wonderful, and they’d do anything for you. I can tell. Tony Stark himself drops in just to see that SHIELD isn’t injecting you with anything outright illegal. But yours get busy, they have a bigger job than just dealing with your whiny butt. Let your family take care of you. That’s what we are here for, and you’d do the same if it were Camilla, or Lydia or Jack in your place.”

Darcy thinks about cousin Jack, about how easily it really could be him sitting in a hospital bed, hurt and alone. Who doesn’t have the same access to medical technology that she does or a team of superheroes to dig her out of a collapsed building, not a fleet of media insiders to send flowers and well wishes. She’d move Heaven and Earth to give him that access. Well, maybe not the press.

The nurse is working on fresh dressings now, and the air moving in the room runs against exposed nerves and she winces, “Okay, yeah, I see your point mom, just, you know, I don’t want anyone making too big of a fuss over me.”

“Oh my darling daughter, don’t you know? You’re worth making a fuss over.”

                                               *

Darcy’s parting shot to Clint before he took her mother to the airport is a joke about a prisoner exchange, and she’s not entirely wrong about that. He flashes id to get through security without a ticket and can even walk Mama Lewis to the gate. SHIELD being far more public now is a boon in some ways, but him being more public is less so. There are a few looks and double takes as they walk together.

“You’re going to look more out of place if you don’t talk to me.” Mary says, “Shouldn’t you know this?” Mary’s impish teasing face is so very familiar that he almost trips over himself.

“Sorry Mary, fell into protection detail.”

“Did you and Darcy have a chance to talk things out yet?” she asks, and tries again to snatch her bag from his arms.

“No, I figured we’d wait until she got back home. Who wants to fight when you can’t even storm out of a room properly?” Darcy does know how to fight dirty sometimes, has a flare for the dramatic and it’s going to be a pleasure talking this one out without the ability to walk out the door. “And you know, perspective, I’ve gained it.”

“Your no-good brother,” she breathes, and damnit, Mary has the soul of a meddler, “Look, where I’m from, we know that families sometimes just go wrong, and that infects the generations down. You break that cycle or you just keep it going. Looks to me like your family has both of that going on.”

The reach her gate, and they sit together, Clint keeping an eye on the public. “He didn’t used to be all bad, you know.”

“You didn’t used to be all-good either. You think I don’t know a troublemaker when I see one Clint Barton? You came to find yourself, that’s all right. But it doesn’t always happen, and we can’t always stop that slide.” Mary keeps her voice quiet, still high pitched but serious, her accent thickening, “But you’ve got a new family about you now. Two of them, since it’s looking like things are rather permanent between you and my little girl.”

Clint smiles, “Yeah, I rather think they are.” And oh god, is he already picking up the speech pattern from Mary?

“Well then, your brother will always be your brother. But you don’t have to keep looking to him to be your only family.” She’s quiet for a moment, “I don’t suppose there’s a couple of agents waiting around the country estate when I get back, is there?”

“Leave out some lemonade and cookies from time to time. They like that.”

Mary just shakes her head as her flight is called. She hugs Clint before boarding, and he does his best not to return it stiffly, but it’s still new. But it’ll work eventually.

                                               *

Cammie’s flight is amazingly on time, so he doesn’t pass out in the uncomfortable chairs like he wants to, but he’s zoned out enough that when the plane lands, Cammie ends up kicking his feet to get his attention.

“Okay, if I can sneak up on you, you’ve got a problem.” Camilla drawls. She swings her backpack from her shoulder to the floor, “And is it normal to have like, three air marshals on the same flight?”

Through his hazy eyes, blurry Cammie staring down at her is almost too much like Darcy to comprehend. Cammie’s got her hair in two thick braids, a style Darcy only wears when she has downtime, a style she won’t be able to wear for quite some time, with parts of her hair already shorn off.

“I’m sure it happens every so often, scheduling snafu’s, inter-department wrangling, bribery. It happens.” Clint maintains a straight face, standing up.

“Okay, whatever. I wanna see Darcy.” Cammie rolls her eyes, accepting the polite fiction readily enough. If only more people would do that. Cammie keeps up a steady stream of one sided conversation, all about school and grades, the schools model farm and throwing some loser into a pile of shit when he made a less than appropriate pass at her while she was working. And she means that she threw him, some things run in the family.

He’s listening to the intricacies of something called environmental physics, and really, he’s starting to think that people just like to put the physics after random words. He really gets enough science talk at home and here he is bringing more of it along.

“I’m starting to think that Darcy is the normal cousin, Camilla Mae.” He finally says, stopping her chatter.

“Darcy wrangles superheroes and works for a formally secret government organization. I want to run a farm or something. Who is the normal one?” she says seriously, “Because really, Darcy got herself….” She stops and takes a breath, “well, she got me here to take care of her for the summer, that’s what.”

                                                        *

They get to the Tower so that he can let Cammie get settled in their spare room, and she’s more than a little in love with their couch. “I’m going to nap here like a burrito every day.” She declares.

He fits her with her set of clearances, different from everyone else’s. No lab accesses, except for Jane's. Common areas, but not any of the Stark Industries levels.  Medical, cafeteria, a few other places and her access is just a hodgepodge of doorways and halls that she is going to get lost in, and if she’s any relative of Darcy’s, ignore and sneak her way into places she shouldn’t go.

Clint shows her the common area, and she practically falls over at the kitchen, inspecting it for ingredients. “I hate cooking when it’s just for me, but large groups? Oh good, sausage and all the dry goods.” She looks up, right as Tony is entering the room, “Do you have lard? Real lard makes for the best biscuits.”

Tony does a double take at the small woman in the kitchen, “Barton,” he says slowly, blinking furiously, as if he’s seeing things, “Did I accidentally clone Darcy in my sleep?”

                                                        *

“My feet itch. I’ve got about two weeks left in a wheelchair while the skin that can grow back, does. My head is scribbly where the new hair is growing in, we’re lowering the dosage of my painkillers and even with super secret SHIELD medical shit, I’m still looking at about four more months of recovery.” Darcy lays out for Cammie, “In short, I’m going to be grumpier than anyone has any right to be.”

Cammie looks at her nails, “Oh damn, and here I thought I’d just come here and look at the tall pretty buildings. See the Statue of Liberty, take in a show. You’re telling me that I have to do work?”  Cammie has mock derision down to a science. Darcy thinks she may have been a bad influence on the poor girl growing up. “Maybe I’ll just take up knitting instead.”

“Who is the one regrowing skin and bone and nerve endings here? Why am I being outsnarked? I should be possessing all of the snark.” Darcy grumbles, but at least she in her own damn home finally. The private suite in SHIELD Medical was getting really dull.

She can at least do paperwork or something. She thinks she could maybe hold a pen to sign her name in her right hand. That arm is only in a sling for another week or so. Her left, well, docs are claiming that one actually needs the cast its in. 

Clint looks at her and narrows his eyes, “I know that look.”

“What look?” Darcy can totally pull off innocent. If she weren’t still wonderfully drugged and not caring about the pain.

“That look. Coulson had it whenever he got injured. I am not bringing you your homework after class.”

“Fine, I’ll just sleep some more then. Bodies don’t heal themselves.”

                                                        *

Clint, Natasha and Steve bunker down in one of the conference rooms that dot the Avenger use portion of the tower, away from prying SHIELD eyes. This is a meeting for them, not for general knowledge.

Clint breathes out, “My brother and robot guy are connected. I just don’t know how.”

“The little robots bear a striking resemblance to the one used to take down Banner, Stark says. More limited artificial intelligence and more of a group mind than any one specific intelligence.” Steve says, sorting through a screen and selecting a video, “We pulled security footage from both the street and what we could get of the building. The critters didn’t enter the building until….”

“We saw one of the men found in the rubble on one of the building cameras,” Natasha explains as the video plays, “Best guess is that he pointed Darcy out before Bishop dropped him. A few minutes later, the robots start entering the building.” Darcy wasn’t a direct target, and that’s a bit heartening, but she is still became a target.

“Do we know what they were trying to grab in the office?” He asks, trying to push out Barney, his older brother that could sometimes be a dick and sometimes stand up for him and Trickshot, freelance marksman. Because in spite of it all, there’s still a part of him that wants to love his brother, then again, he’s preparing to take him down if he has too. Compartmentalization is Clint Barton’s friend.

“Yes, it’s a small tech firm that has recently acquired a contract with the DOD,” Steve answers, “We’re working on getting their project listing still.”

“Much longer and we’ll be getting it through less bureaucratic means,” Natasha adds.

“Two warehouses have also been hit in the past two weeks, with similar tech use. One in Vermont, the other in Boston. Limited AI robotics and arrows have been found at both scenes. The warehouse in Boston was for a small-scale tech manufacturer. We’re still figuring out the angle in Vermont.”  The information for the warehouses appears on the screens, information streaming.

“I’m getting the impression that it probably wasn’t the industrial cleaning supplies that Trickshot was after.” Clint scowls, “Probably something there that shouldn’t be.”

“Unless they have something they really need to clean up.” Natasha tilts her head. “Trickshot is working for this guy, but he’s also targeting you, Barton.”

“He used to be such a nice, sweet boy.” He groans, “Except, you know, not really. He generally looked out for himself first, and I just kept getting a more and more distant second.” He drums his fingers against the table, keeping a steady but irregular rhythm going as the three of them look over the materials at hand, “If we could track him somehow we could separate out his workings, we might be able to see who his puppeteer is.”

Natasha stills his hand and not gently, slaps the fingers down and pushes them against the table. He stares at her, a “Hey, my livelihood!’ on his lips but before he can speak she says, “I have an idea. You won’t like it.”

Steve tells her to go on. Natasha does, voice clipped and detached, the way she does when she’s swallowing down her own distaste in favor of efficiency and pragmatism. She’ll use whatever tools she can to get the job done, and here her tool is a person. “Trickshot will take whatever opportunity he can if it causes you pain. He would certainly come out of the woodwork if he knew you were training up a little protégé.” Steve’s on his side on this one, and they both start objecting but Natasha puts up her other hand, “Hear me out. Bishop can get a tracker on him, she already shot him once and she will do it again if she has the chance. Somehow, Barton, she’s already picked up on your loyalty.”

And that slides it into place for Clint, as much as Natasha is right, he hates the idea of using a kid to bait his brother, but said kid? Would want to do it, and would do if she thought it would help.

“I don’t want to expose an inner working of SHIELD or the Avengers like that,” Steve muses, his jaw held tightly but he’s chewing through scenarios, “And it sets up that bad precedent.” That precedent that’s going to get children killed thinking they can fight the bad guys and be noticed by the Avengers.

“That’s the thing, Captain, we’ve already got her cover in place. A rich kid doing a prestigious internship? That’s not out of the question, nor being inspired by that? All we have to do is plant the idea in Trick’s head that Clint has taken notice.” Natasha continues, her hand still on his, still pushing tight. His fingers are trying to break free, and he can see where this is going.

“Barney hated that I was better than he was, if he thinks…I don’t like her being placed as bait, that’s all.” He sighs, wills his hand to relax, “She’d screw up if we told her it was a mission though. She’s not ready.”

“I’d want to take advantage of the ways we’d know she’d screw up.” Natasha finally releases his hand, and looks Cap in the eye and begins to lay out her plan for them.

                                                        *

 

It’s been weeks already, her hair looks horrible as it slowly grows in over the scars, and there’s one on her face that she can already tell is not going to heal well. Kate, when she comes to visit every so often after her a session with Clint, tells her that when they found her, there was still debris falling on her head, creating new cuts and gashes.

And it’s actually Kate, who is a little hollow around the eyes and determined in the jaw that will tell her about the fight, and their search. No one else really seems to want to do this for her. Natasha would, but Natasha wasn’t there for the search, having been hurt herself, to her endless frustration. 

Kate spares no punches though, gives a rundown with florid descriptions, while Clint hovers just outside the doorway. She’s been coached on how to do a debriefing now, and while it’s not one she’d want to have to take down yet, it’s getting there.

“Hey, uh,” Kate says, suddenly a lot more nervous. Considering she was just telling Darcy about the position she had landed in, it’s weird the things she gets weird about, “Have you seen the coverage afterwards? They managed to keep me mostly quiet but I’m getting pressured to do an actual interview. You too. “

“Trying to cast as the unsung heroes?” Darcy smiles, and yeah, she figured that was coming eventually. She works with the media after all and it’s probably only by grace that she hasn’t been inundated with requests herself, unless someone is keeping her from them. “Grab me that tablet, will ya?” She glances at Clint, who is now walking around, gathering small items from around the suite.

Kate hands the small tablet over and Darcy cradles it so she can use her hands to navigate it slowly, pulls up her email. Her team has been covering her inbox for her, and as she suspects they have a special folder for requests that are for her. Kate’s have been coming through her father’s work but Darcy can see that one of the non-idiot shows have been asking, rather nicely, if they can schedule the two of them together.

“I don’t know what to say to them. The pater has been pretty much hands off, cause he says I can manage my ‘publicity’ on my own if I am not going to do what he wants me to do because clearly, I do not want to be in publishing. I mean like…” Kate quickly babbles, “Oh that’s something utterly else. But the kids from my class have been naming me left and right.”

“How was graduation? Sorry we didn’t come.”

“Meh. There was a speech, I walked across the stage. Nothing blew up so it was pretty much the same as every other high school graduation.”

Darcy’s pretty certain Kate’s prep school didn’t quite have the same graduation traditions as hers did, but to be fair, her graduating class was about fifty people who’d known each other since they were three. She signed her name to a barn door in hot pink paint, alongside faded names from decades of graduates.

“We can,” Darcy says, scanning through the emails, trying to avoid any of the actual work that she has been told she is not allowed to do for at least another week, “I just…” she shakes her head and laughs like a crazy person, “I don’t know what to do with my hair. And I am not going on national TV looking like I let a five year old near me with a razor.”

Kate reaches out and touches her head, running fingers through long waves and sharp cut hairs, “I have an idea but…”

“Hey Kate!” Clint calls from another room, “Got some things to show you.”

“I’ll get that cousin of yours, and we will figure something out. Maybe Agent Romanov can help too. She’s got to have some creative solutions.”  Kate rolls her eyes and Clint yells for her again before she can get the chance to track down exactly what room of the suite he’s hiding in.

                                      *

“Hey, girly, want to see something cool?” Clint grins and Kate just arches an eyebrow.

“The last time someone said that to me, he was trying to take off his pants. Please don’t take off your pants.” She waves her hand at his cute little worried face. Like he wants to go back in time and beat up the world.

Big brother she never had.

“What do you want to show me?” she says exasperated. Barton gets a little glee in his eyes as he lays out a series of arrowheads, “Oh boy, arrows. We never play with those.”

“You want to roll with me, you better love them. These are ones I designed myself. My quiver keeps the ones I use most often in rotation, but these are ones I keep in my pockets just in case.

Okay, well, then that’s cool. That’s new and she sits on the floor, cross-legged. Barton is increasingly detailed about each of the heads, taking them apart and putting them together. He takes a tablet out and shows her the specifications and the design process.

Barton’s been doing this for her since they met, pulls her into an orbit where she knows that she’s a kid here, but he’s not just getting all didactic on her, when he teaches and lectures, it’s immersive and she’ll just…her mind doesn’t wander. It’s too focused to do that, but she’s deconstructing his movements, his speech, the trick arrows, and putting them back in the slots in her brain that work for her.

“This one, I’m proud of, one of the first I designed after we formed the Avengers. It’s a two-stage tracker. You hit something and…” he demonstrates on a target board he set up, the shell breaking away and it burrows in. “The top layer is a tracker in itself, and while it’s tough to remove its also obvious to remove. The second part is what’s inside of it when it breaks off. You get this in a person, and it releases some tech that even I don’t get into the bloodstream. It can keep for about two months before it breaks down.”

“You sure you have the brainpower to back that one up?” Clint has her taking it apart, “I mean, it’s real cool and all that you get each arrowhead weighed and balanced the same, but that’s some serious mojo in that one.”

“I had help. Banner and Stark came up with the second tracker, but I put it together.”

“Idiot savant.”

“Hey, kid, those are fighting words.” Clint retorts, “Give me a moment, I’ll be back in a minute, pack this up for me?” He heads back into the bedroom, and there’s a low murmur between him and Darcy, soft laughter. And yeah, Darcy’s going to be fine, but it churns at her gut that she maybe, just maybe she could have done more to get her out of there, insisted they leave together. Something, anything.

Kate looks at the arrowhead. Clint’s got three copies of it laid out, he’ll never miss one of them, and while she’s putting all the trick heads away, she pockets one of them and slips out the door.

She got one on Trickshot before; she can certainly do it again.

                                      *

“Well, that was smooth.” Darcy can feel the pressure in her sinuses, and wants to pinch her nose, but yeah, that particular move can’t happen. “How are you a person that works in espionage?”

“Did what we needed to do,” Clint says, slipping behind her on the bed and letting her lean up against him, “She would go try to do something stupid on her own eventually. At least now we can guide the stupid.”

“Thanks for giving me something to do at least, I’m going all screwy being bored.”

His arms wrap around her, settle around her breasts, across her stomach. It’s one of the first few chances they’ve had to be alone. Her mom was, well her mother and always hovers and while Cammie is very different and doesn’t hover, she’s just almost always there. Add in assorted Avengers, Agents and well-wishers, she’s never alone. They are never alone. Her bruises are healing, no longer deep purple, just a sickly cast to her skin now.

Clint pushes and plays with the remaining long locks of hair, buries his face in her neck and breathes out an almost inaudible apology. “I was a dick,” Okay, it’s a Clint Barton sort of apology but it is one.

“Yeah, me too. I prodded where I should have supported.” Darcy says a little weakly, “And, well, I didn’t make myself easy to be with.”

“Warned you about my issues.”

“I’m planning on being a lifelong subscriber. I’ll take the backlog when you are ready, too.” She blurts out, because while the meds are no longer making her loopy, they are making her just a little bit loose in the tongue. “But I think it should be sooner.”

If anything, he grips her tighter even if it is cautious, this newly discovered breakableness of her body scares them both. She’s gotten banged up before, comes with being part of the support team, but nothing that’s ever been like this fragility. “I’ve been trying to wrestle with my brother in absentia,” he whispers into her neck, “And I’m tired of feeling like I’ve betrayed him by having a good life, having you, doing the right and decent. I’ve never wanted more except….”

“Except he’s your big brother and that should mean something.” And hurts more than anything else that she can’t hold him, that he’s got to do that work too, “And it does, that no matter what, you are going to be thinking of him. You can’t erase him from your life.”

He doesn’t have to say the next words, just skips ahead to, “Nights been tough, like he’s crawled up in my heart, trying to take up the space that I’ve been carving out for the people that matter.  Making me think about him more than I have in years, and it alternates between wanting to send an arrow shaft straight through his heart and just forgiving him.”

 

“It’s okay to love him a little bit.” Darcy says with stark minimalism, enough that Clint lifts up his head and kisses her forehead. She can feel the wheels turning in his head, but knows that there’s been enough pushing for the night. Processing takes time. He murmurs something soft and lovely to her, and words don’t matter. Darcy adjusts in his arms, and like it has been, easily drifts off for a nap. Healing is exhausting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I know it's taking me a little longer than anyone would like for me to get the chapters out. I hope each update is worth it.
> 
> As always, you can follow and keep up with me at my [ my tumblr](http://twistedingenue.tumblr.com) I post snippets and regular frustrations with the writing process.


	4. Chapter 4

 

“You know, I’m pretty sure there are professionals who do this sort of thing. I can pay them, I don’t need two girls barely out of adolescence playing hairdresser.” This isn’t a time for muttering, Darcy thinks, because Cammie and Kate are looking at her. With scissors and evil intent.

There’s no razors around at least.

“Oh come on. There are lots of options. I like hats, maybe braids. Oh I know! Wigs! Extensions. Ladies, something.” They don’t stop with the looking, “Where’s Natasha when I need her most?”

“Boston.” Kate deadpans, “She had to go to Boston. Post-haste and all that jazz. It’s just us now.”

“Pepper, I trust Pepper with my hair.”

“Tony says she has to run his company. She’s in Malibu!” Cammie singsongs. Having Tony encounter Cammie was probably the worst thing ever. They are just biding their time before they set the tower alight with the power of their deviousness or their cooking. Cammie smiles, “We could tease it. I know what teasing does to your hair.”

Darcy pales because, no, she cannot. Her mother wears her hair at big as possible, only attainable through the grace and triumph of the backcomb, rollers and a bottle of hairspray every two weeks. She is not that sort of woman. Darcy loves her loose curls, occasionally straightening them, the way Clint runs his hands through them in bed and the way the weight of them is comforting on her shoulders.

It’s a lot less now, and while her hair grows fast, it’s not going to grow fast enough for when she gets back to work full-time, much less this interview that she’s supposed to be prepping Kate for tomorrow. Instead, the girls ambushed her and it’s really not fair to ambush someone who isn’t cleared for walking yet. There’s no escaping now.

With her arms limited in how much they can move, she works to get her hair in her hand, rubs the silk of it. She’s so proud (she grew it herself, thanks), but it’s going to be ridiculous sooner or later, uneven and choppy, but its all hers.

“We can make it look good, Darcy.” Kate is sincere for once, sitting beside her, picking up a large piece of hair and folding it against Darcy’s head, judging the length, “Although screw that. We’ll make you look even more beautiful.”

“Fine,” Darcy moans, drawing out the word to be at least three syllables long. Her eyes close and she can’t help it, “But you Kate, not Cammie. I don’t trust her. I have pictures of her when she cut off her neighbors hair.”

“I was seven, Darce.” Cammie gawks loudly, “I’ve improved.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” Kate rolls her eyes, “There’s a professional in the lobby.” She pulls out her phone and starts dialing, “This is a perk of being rich, ladies. Beauty on demand, if you care for it.”

Darcy can think of a lot of other perks to being rich, but hey, the revolution has to begin somewhere. And glass houses and stones, she lives in the most coveted office space in the world.

                                               *

There’s so much hair on the ground. So much, its like they shaved a yak. Well, maybe not a yak, but some large furry animal. Whatever it is, that hair is not on her head anymore and it is on the floor instead. And Darcy is terrified to look in the mirror.

She runs her hand through what’s left of her hair and it does not take long. But it feels soft and silky and while she can tell where it’s growing in rather than having been shorn, it’s not ideal, but unless she wanted to actually shave her head, it was going to have to work.

Don’t be a baby, Lewis, just look, she thinks and steels herself, and she opens her eyes slowly. “Holy crap my eyes look huge.” She says in surprise, thinking that the pixie cut would have been the first thing she noticed, but no, it’s how wide her eyes look without all that hair in the way.

“I’d certainly look out of place back home,” she says, “But uh, it’s not bad. Sophisticated?” she asks, looking at the other girls. Cammie gives her thumbs up, and Kate’s wandered off already. There’s weaponry in the suite, that’s way cooler than a new haircut. “I’m going to need new frames for my glasses.”

“That’s the spirit, Darcy.” Cammie smiles.

                                      *

It’s a little later, when Cammie goes off in search of something far more entertaining than Darcy’s slow freak-out over her haircut that Kate finally sits down for the actual reason that she invited her in this morning.

“Summer break feels a little less fun knowing that at the end of it, I’m not going back to high school, but hitting up college.” Kate sighs, sitting down in a chair.

“I’m still shocked that your father didn’t get you into Harvard.”

“Oh he did,” she points out, “And Stanford. But I got into Columbia all on my own.”

“What are you going to study?” Darcy asks.

“Am I getting interrogated?” Kate groans, “I mean seriously—”

“It’ll be asked tomorrow.”

“If you ask my father, Financial Engineering.” She answers, her hair falling in her face, “If you ask me, I have no clue. I’m thinking of taking a year off, to be honest, step up what I’m doing here.”

They talk for a short while, Darcy pulling more and more questions out of her, ones she knows could come up tomorrow.  Kate is mostly graceful; she’s more comfortable in the public eye than any of the Avengers, including Stark, who is comfortable because he doesn’t give a shit and just delights in being an asshole.

Which means tripping her up is going to be harder than she thought it would be, because the girl is actually pretty smooth. She gives flippant answers to Darcy; Darcy is a safe person to say things about her frustrations with being in society and how it doesn’t make things safer, just easier. But she’ll take the step back and have a canned response about how eye opening her internship is, and that she’s working with some wonderful and inspiring people.

“When does the sling come off?” Kate asks, worn out and resting her head against the back of her chair.

“Depends on how pitiful I want to look tomorrow.” Darcy admits, they had to keep the sling on a little longer than they had been hoping but it’s due to come off now. Which means being able to do light work again, finally. Not how she wanted to go on vacation. Next time, there needs to be bikini's, booze, and a beach that has her and Clint and not a single other person. Okay, maybe a waterslide, because those are fun.

                                                        *

It’s a role switch. Clint stands around the edges of the Stark conference room that they’ve taken over for the interview. Because like hell is he going against his better judgment and letting Darcy out of the tower until she’s healed up. He’ll freely admit to being a little over-protective, and he’s sure it’ll pass. Right as soon as he knows where his brother is, he’s sure it’ll stop.

There’s a flurry of activity in the room and Darcy sits in the middle of it, the perfect calm of the eye of the storm. She’s chatting with the host amiably, already in her seat because she’s only just starting to walk on her feet and the few steps she took, well aided, from her wheelchair to the set hurt and wear her out. She’s a beautiful sight, and he catches her eye when she looks to him. She has her own job to do here, besides looking cute and heroic, a tiny bit distressed.

He loves seeing her in her element, and seeing her interact and manipulate the media is a treat, even better from this angle. That he’s not being lectured or handled makes this the best interview he’s ever been privy to.

If Darcy is center of the hurricane, then Kate is the rest of the fucking storm. She’s twitchy and nervous, which is fine by Clint. That’ll help as the host (Samuel something) and Darcy get her to reveal too much. Kate paces, actually paces the length of the conference room until a PA tells her to take her seat.

“Are we doing this live?” Kate asks, “Or is there a tape delay?”

“Live, Bishop.” Darcy answers in a light voice, “Calm yourself, it’s just talking. You know how to talk, I’ve seen you do it plenty of times.” She gets Clint’s attention again with a little wave and a blown kiss. Great, she’s got enough of the painkillers to feel relaxed without losing her ability to think.

They mark off thirty seconds to air. It’s just supposed to be a quick spot, a few minutes on a cable show. It should be enough to get the press off of their backs about the incident and particularly off Bishop’s. Clint still isn’t sure which cable show it is, doesn’t really care. He tries to avoid the news whenever possible. Dog Cops, man, now there’s a show.

The interview starts with introductions, terribly normal. Kate pulls her nerves into a more reasonable projection of a teenager going on television for the first time. She’s never had a hard time expressing herself, but when Sam asks her what she’s going to study, she laughs and looks at Darcy before saying, “That’s still a matter of some contention.”

Sam moves the conversation to the attack, and Darcy gives the SHIELD-approved rundown of the event, attributing it to a person of interest that they are actively pursing, can’t really comment more on an active scene.

“I was actually, supposed to be there,” Kate adds, “I was on a class trip, and only had my archery gear for practice after school. I mean, it’s sheer dumb luck that there everything happened the way it did. I saw Darcy there, and like my classmates said, she was getting pinned down.”

“I would have gained the upper hand eventually,” Darcy puts on a charming smile, “I went in to coordinate an evacuation. When these things happen, we find that sometimes the open street is a better place to be than the building. By this point, the Avengers were in the street, and as a handler, I’ve had experience doing this work.”

Kate interrupts, strong and determined, “When I started this internship with SHIELD, I figured it would just be a way to spend the time before college, making coffee and carting around paperwork. But, even in the offices…” she clears her throat, like she’s been preparing this for days and maybe she had been, “even on the sidelines, there’s this great sense of duty and doing the right thing. When I saw Darcy there, I knew that I needed to do something.”

“Where did you learn to arch?” the host asks.

“Believe it or not, Interlochen Summer Camp. In addition, I play a mean cello.” She laughs, “It’s hard not to try to live up this feeling that you have a part to play. My mother always said that we have a lot that we owe to the world for putting us where we are. After she died, it stayed with me, a promise to be better.”

Clint blinks, it’s the most she’s ever talked about her mother. Her father, she’s pretty free with, but her mother…well, now he’s getting a feeling that while he’s playing one game, Kate is playing another.

“Well, you’ve got talent,” says the host, engaging Kate and trying to pull her out more, knowing a story when he hears one, “And it’s clear that you know how to use it.”

“Hawkeye was impressed,” Darcy adds, almost absently if you didn’t know that she’s been looking for a way just to put his name in there. Barney is just as smart as he is, maybe smarter, and he can put two and two together when for a brief moment Kate’s pride at being complimented shines through. “Good shooting, and very brave.”

“And then the walls fell.” Sam (Baker? Bradshaw? Something with a B and very boring) emotes, actually emotes like the empty-headed empathic host he is.

“Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,” Darcy perks her eyebrows up but looks down. She has been spending more time with her family if she’s breaking out the musical Biblical references, “I got Kate out of there, because as brave as she is, and it’s not her job.” Her head jerks with a considering look over at Kate, “Yet, anyways. I didn’t get out in time, and I’m very lucky for friends, and for Miss Bishop here that I was found before I could be hurt worse.”

“We’re all very happy that you are recovering so well, and you look great considering...”

The interview continues and winds down and he mouths his approval at Darcy. She looks at him, and that’s acknowledgement enough that they’ve accomplished what they need to do here.

 

                                               *

“She didn’t get take the interview the way that we expected her to,” Steve points out, “Is that going to be a problem?”

“Darcy pulled it back where it needed to go,” Clint says before Natasha has a chance to speak, putting his hands on the table, “Nat, you forgot one thing when you decided to rely on Kate.”

“What’s that?” she smiles, probably already knowing his response, because she practically lives inside his head. Neither of them are quite sane.

“Teenagers are by their very nature, unreliable.” He looks up at the ceiling, “She just used a national platform to send a message to her father, which is probably the only way she can get anything through to him.” He shakes his hands with a chuckle; he wishes he had been old enough to do the same before his father crashed. Although it probably wouldn’t have been on cable news, and probably would have ended with a lot more pain, “Water under the bridge, shouldn’t effect anything else. What’s next?”

“Did she-” Steve starts, and becomes strangely tongue-tied and moves his hands away from each other, “You just call them trick arrows?”

“I could call them my babies, but that’s just weird.” He looks up at the ceiling, “Tracker arrow. It was gone when I checked after she left. So either we have a very inventive rat that we should be tracking, or we have two steps checked off the list.”

Natasha can be checklist bound sometimes and never likes to be reminded of her failings as a spy and operations management type person. It’s the competing urges to be well documented and keep everything hidden away. If she can live in his head, he can pick around the edges of his time-share in hers. Still, he watches as she sorts through the information in her head.

“So what’s next, Tasha?” he repeats.

“We need a second bait. Trickshot isn’t actively going out of his way to attack, he’s working for someone. So let’s set the rest of the trap for his boss.”

“He’s high tech and artificial intelligence oriented, and he’s getting more and more willing to cause outside damage and civilian damage. That first attack was mostly aimed towards us, remember.” Steve lays out, “And his targets recently have been about either closing loose ends, or gaining new information or materials. Can we exploit that?”

Natasha’s smile is slow to build but is predatory, sends chills down Clint’s back, he’s been on the back end of that look and it always ends well. Maybe not for him, but the result always worked out.

“We need to go back to Boston.”

                                                        *

“So you want me to what? Be a guard dog or something?” Kate says, disbelief coloring her tone and she looks from person to person, “That doesn’t seem in line with being an intern.”

Sitwell and Hill exchange a look, long-suffering, “No.” Sitwell says carefully, “We want you to be an escort for a specific attendee of a technology conference we’re hosting. Charlie Tigner is giving one of the major papers and demonstrations. He’s a little…. distractible. We want someone to keep him on task.”

“So I’m a personal assistant to Ms Lewis’s pet grad student?”  Kate's sitting across from the two SHIELD agents in Hill’s office in a real uncomfortable chair, after being called in after a range session. She has to remember to use last names, not speak a mile a minute. Actual authority figures make her fidget.

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Sitwell sighs out with a huff, pushing a packet towards Kate. She picks it up and leafs through the contents, “You are an intern.” The contents are just a bunch of papers; schedules, a couple of bios, travel itineraries, and a sheet about Tigner himself. Huh. She didn’t know that anyone rates the words ‘keep away from Stark if at all possible’ underlined three times.

“And you are going to have to do actual intern things eventually.” Hill gets a little scary when she gets all stern. She doesn’t think Assistant Director Hill actually knows how to talk to teenagers, and it’s amusing on the inside. Only on the inside because Kate is not an idiot.

“Yeah sure,” she asserts before one of them can try to start lecturing her on responsibility and that not everything can be shooting arrows. If she wants lectures, she can go home and not-listen to her father some more. ”Sounds like fun.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter than usual, for specific pacing reasons. Slow and steady wins the race.


	5. Chapter 5

The flat quiver shifts uncomfortably underneath Kate's blazer, reminder her that it isn't sized for her at all, and that maybe when all of this is over, she can convince Barton that she really should have her own. Or she could just keep appropriating his and customize it for her own use. That's actually more likely; Clint can get himself a new one. The fold-up bow built into the side, that was more difficult to get a hold of, and the weapons locker almost beat her lock picking skills.

She'll have to replace that when this conference is over. And bullshit, she's not here to shuffle around Mr Tigner, he's more competent with his time management than most of the people she passes in the hallways. Kate can smell the hinky coming straight off of this sham.

The quiver does not hold much, five arrows, most just with normal tips (one explosive, because, well, boom), and one set aside for the tracker. But it would be enough to get started if things went to shit.

Tigner - Charlie, she reminds herself, is a nice enough guy. He treats most things with this resigned expression and just goes with whatever Kate tells him is on the agenda, as long as he avoids certain people.

She did have to high tail it after he tried to escape the conference hall when Stark yelled his name over the crowd and physically corral him back into the meeting space but only after she saw that Stark had found a new victim.

"Here's a hint," he grumbled as she poked him in the back to get moving, "Never meet your heroes, they always disappoint you."

But for the most part, Kate's just walking around in a kick ass suit and as unsensible heels as she can get away with and still run. And a hidden quiver and bow, just like any other intern in SHIELD. Okay, most of the rest probably have guns rather than archaic weaponry. If they are allowed to have anything, which she’s not, so she imagines that the interns, if they have any sense at all, have done exactly what she’s done.

Steal from the boss.

                                               

* * *

Science isn’t boring, but listening to big words without any visual aids is worse than the lectures back at school. At least Charlie brought little robots that she can talk to between the speakers and during the question and answer sessions. How cool is that? How strange is that?

“If you want to sneak off, you should.” Charlie leans over to her, where she’s slumped in her chair, “I can handle myself if you want to get a drink or something.”

 “You want a drink?” she asks, pulling her hair back behind her ear 

“No, I’m asking if you want a drink. And if you do, you should go up and get one.” Charlie rolls his eyes, Kate understands why Darcy likes him, he’s like one giant ball of exasperation. “The type of drink I want, you can’t get for me.”

“Okay, so I haven’t really been paying attention. What’s the deal with the other presenters?” She says, quickly changing the subject, “They aren’t like, friends of yours, are they?”

“Hardly,” Charlie scoffs, “Most of them are pissed off that a mere grad student is the keynote speaker, and if you haven’t noticed, most of them will barely look at me. I’m giving a talk today on next-generation AI and ethical constructs, but,” he points to the current speaker, “She’s speaking in the complete opposite direction that I’ll take it, she’s saying that AI is effectively ethically neutral.” He gives a hard look at Kate, “You’ve spoken to JARVIS, you know what brand of bullshit that is. The last speaker was on more technical robotics, pretty cool and a very forward thinker. I might collaborate with him in the future.”

And now that Charlie starts droning on, and really everything that these people are saying just sounds like blah blah blah, although her ears do perk up every so often. But it’s not for the science; it’s for the other things, the gossip that everyone trades in, more valuable than all the papers these scientists can write. The short man in the ill-fitting suit jacket is searching for someone with a bright star he can hitch on. The slim woman who is actually fairly fashion forward wants out of higher ed. And from the corner there’s a couple discussing a rather interesting job offer that the woman received from some dude named Helmut, but she misses the last name.

Helmut is like the name you want the guy that fixes your Volkswagen to have, not your boss.

No one is actively paying that much attention to the speaker.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get up and get a drink?” Charlie asks, shifting his eyes to the side.

“Why are you so sure that I’m thirsty?”

Charlie nods his head over to the other side, where there is a black woman roughly his age, studiously taking notes. She’s tall, taller than him certainly, well and sturdily built but sweet looking. If you like nerds and the only person in the room who is paying attention, and she’s wearing kitten heels. Obviously the kind of person who can’t make up their mind. If you can’t choose between flats or high heels, you are bound to be wishy-washy in life.

“You aren’t a bodyguard, you’re an intern.” He gently reminds her, his eyes pleading. She’s totally a bodyguard though, even if that’s not on paper.

“Okay, sure Romeo.” She smiles sweetly, “I’ll grab myself a soda. It’s watered down and then they put more ice in it, but it sure is refreshing.” She stands up and excuses herself with grace, and let’s Charlie try to get his mack on.

Not actually getting a drink, Kate watches his attempts from the back of the room. He’s inept, like every bit of smooth that he has just drops from him the moment he talks to a woman he actually likes. He’s terrible and it’s hilarious.

Something pulls at the back of her head as the woman with the job offer comes up to get her own drink.

“I should come to conferences where Stark has pull more often,” she says to Kate conversationally, “free booze during the boring part? Glorious.”

“I’m glad someone one else here finds this boring,” she replies, and there’s that pull again. She checks out the doors and windows but doesn’t see anything that should spook her, “What’s your area?”

She rolls her eyes, “My boyfriend is into this stuff. I’m a chemist.”

“So blowing things up?” Kate has not yet met anyone interested in chemistry that didn’t love explosions, and causing them. The woman coughs to cover up a laugh.

That’s when things start blowing up.

“Oh that’s not what I meant.” Kate groans, taking off her jacket in a flash. The flat quiver might be uncomfortable, but it sure is handy. “Not a bodyguard my ass.” Taking off at a run into the mass of people is never a mistake though.

Kate’s always scared. That feeds the rush she feels in the base of her spine, and the way that excitement and nervousness and brightness of purpose curls around and up through her body and out every sense she has.

To his credit, Charlie isn’t among the stampede of people, but has been making his way calmly towards the SHIELD security team that is trying to evacuate the building.  When she catches up to him, he’s draped his coat over his arm, “I should have known something like this would happen. It always happens to me.”

“Whatever, Eeyore…” she starts to say before a short spray of bullets hit the wall behind him, “Hey, no one said anything about…” she looks closer at the wall, and the bullets didn’t go through, but are instead are only barely embedded. With closer inspection, they don’t look like bullets at all. “Run. Now.” She barks to Charlie, pushing him out of the way.

Every drill she’s done doesn’t even compare to this. This? This is a thrill disguised as death, and Kate’s going to stare it down with her bow and limited arrows and it’s going to be fun.

They explode, and they don’t really pack that much of a punch, but what they do is a distraction. “Get low and get to SHIELD.” She says, keeping up with Charlie as she unfolds her bow.

“You too!” he yells back, “This isn’t a place for you!”

“Are you kidding? This is exactly the place for me.” Kate asserts and shoves Charlie into an agent and runs past them. She thinks she can see whoever is organizing the attack and SHIELD is doing a bang-up job with evacuation but there are not enough people to really watch tactics.

She barely dodges the fucking arrow that’s aimed at her, and its head divides into those same bullet shaped explosives after it flies past her. It only takes a moment to run the angles in her head, its just math after all, and she’s good at that.

Six arrows, four normal heads, one explosive, one arrow for the tracker. She wastes two before she gets her bearings and locates Trickshot, and gets a look at him. There’s certainly a family resemblance, even just in their stance and he surety of his movement.

But family traits are family traits and it’s just making it easier to dodge his attempts to hit her, and she has an advantage: she knows Clint’s moves so she can guess his. She gets a hit in, grazing his side, but it’s enough to slow him down for a moment.

She whips around, her spatial awareness finding the goon coming up on her and lets the last of her normal arrows go to incapacitate him.

“Damnit!” she yells as another bolt explodes in front of her, releasing a fog in front of her, and it confuses her senses. She hears her name being screamed from somewhere.

“KATE!” It’s so familiar, “KATE, THEY AREN’T SHIELD” Her eyes open wide, and she sees Charlie being dragged out the door by a couple of men whose uniforms are just a shade too light for real agents, and she struggles to get off the explosive arrow, hoping that she can at least distract them long enough to get there.

She misfires, the arrow not even reaching halfway to her target before it goes off. Charlie’s almost out of range for him to hear her shout, but she has to try anyways, “We’ll find you!”

She’s only got the one arrow left, only has the tracker, and she sees Trickshot one last time, hears him say, “Aww, a little Hawkeye.” And she makes her choice as she pulls the bowstring back, arrow nocked and ready, her aim sure this time.

Kate releases her fingers and watches as the tracker hit Charlie in the shoulder. She can only hear his scream as the second stage is released into his bloodstream before an actual SHIELD agent grabs her and gets her out of the conference room, Trickshot taunting her as he disappears.

* * *

 

“How could you let that happen?” Darcy yells, barely keeping upright in the conference, “You got Charlie…”

“She didn’t get Charlie anything, Darce.” Clint tries to put out his hands to steady her, and also to hold her back from Kate. Kate’s not exactly cowering at the sight of Darcy, just at the beginning of being able to walk without too much pain again, trying to rush her.

“She was supposed to shoot your brother, not my friend.” She points out stubbornly and Clint braces himself for the response from the other woman in the room. “Now we’ve put Charlie in more danger, and you know what, he’d like to go a couple of years without being forcibly recruited by the bad guys!”

“Wait. You expected that to happen?” Kate is quiet and focused in her distress, “Did you use me, Clint Barton?”

“Of course we used you,” Natasha says walking in through the door. Clint’s not going to touch on her sense of timing, “You are a fantastic asset, and now the mission parameters have changed. We can still work with what happened.”

“That’s cold, Romanov.” Darcy’s voice is thick and stuck in her throat. “Who knows what they are doing with Charlie, he could be hurt,” she stares at Kate, “More hurt, anyways.”

“It’s what happened Lewis, and we will use it. It might even work out better.” Natasha muses, “They got the scientist they wanted, and Trickshot isn’t going to waste that, he’ll take Tigner to whoever is bankrolling him. The tracker works just as well in Charlie as it does in Trick.”

“I don’t like it.” Darcy folds her arms and sits back down.

“Well, I’m the one that fucked up,” Kate says bringing her gaze back to Darcy before setting them in a challenge to Clint, “and I’m going to be on that team that brings him back.”

He starts to balks but Natasha, and really, when did he start letting all these women boss him around like this, nods her assent before walking out.

Darcy is still scowling, but she softens just an inch at Kate’s resolve. She doesn’t like what’s happened, her body is still too tense and she’s a moment away from crying. She probably will when she’s in PT today, and Clint knows he needs to stay away from that today, let Cammie handle it.

“He called me little Hawkeye.” Kate says slowly, like she’s just remembering, “Is this what a mission feels like? Like jumping off a very tall building without a net?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Well, this bird is going to have to learn to fly better.” Kate says, “Because I’m going to earn that name.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a chapter or two left for this work and the series, and hopefully, worth the wait.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m still not used to this,” Clint runs his hands through Darcy’s hair, what’s left of it. Knowing that it’s a cute cut and actually liking it are different things. “I miss being able to pull.” He grins wickedly at her, pocketing himself alongside her on the couch before readjusting because he keeps forgetting that he’ll take up all the room if given a moment to do so.  
  
“You can still pull, it’s just a different feel to it,” Darcy says back, aiming for  a similar level of flirty but it ends up in a yawn. Getting back to work and PT and her damn cousin, who is finally leaving because Cammie? Is not paid for this shit, and needs to earn a little cash for the school year, all these things wear her the fuck out well before the work is done.  
  
And it’s been the worrying too, the worry is tiring. Charlie’s been gone for a week, and while the tracker is working just fine, he keeps moving. “He’s got to be terrified.” She says after a long moment of quiet. They don’t do a whole lot of quiet together and even Clint has got to realize that means somethings up.  
  
“He’s tougher than we want to remember.” Clint tries to reassure her, “And we know exactly where he is, and we will get him back. We just need him in a steady place so we can make plans.”  
  
“Clint Barton, making plans. Being all tactical. Is the world ending?” Darcy teases, poking Clint in the stomach for good measure. Clint, unfortunately, spends a lot of time with injuries of his own and knows how to retaliate without hurting her, and it’s really not fair at all. She keeps wanting to slap at his hands but her arms still don’t want to make such a sudden motion, even if it doesn’t hurt. “Okay, seriously quit it” she grins as she realized that his retaliation came with a shift in how they were situated, and now he’s leaning over her, and running a hand through her hair again and over her jawline. His fingers are calloused and a little rough, and she likes that, loves how he telegraphs where he’s going to kiss her first. Loves how the roughness of his finger is different from the stubble on his face.   
  
“He’s going to be fine, Darce. We’re going to take care of him, I’m going to find my brother and let you at him. Let me just take care of you first, okay.” He says into  her neck and down across her collarbone.  
  
It’ll ache later, the way she wraps her arms around him and lets him do all the work, but it’ll be so worth it. 

* * *

  
    The official response to Kate wanting to be involved in the effort to recover Charlie Tigner mostly involved the phrase 'sit down and shut up.' and she's finding that she doesn't even mind that phrase. Because, she's not being treated like a fuck-up kid, just the regular normal type of fuck-up. That's a little disconcerting, but it's fine really. Standing or sitting in the back of the room as they track Charlie via the bloodstream tracker is probably more than she deserves.  
   
    But all the time she spends in what is honest to god called the war room keeps her out of the public eye, keeps her away from Darcy and the questioning press. The press wonder why a mere intern was set up with weapondry and Darcy is quite good at dodging making a real statement about it. The long nights mean staying over often, means not going home, means not making a decision about school and not seeing her father.  
   
    If he's actually noticed at all that she's not around. That’s not outside the realm of possibility.  
      
    So far, Charlie’s been taken to Jersey for a few hours, where he sat in some warehouse. They had started to mobilize, but by the time the troops were rallied, Charlie was being moved and the decision was made to see where he landed. But he didn’t stay in one place for long. He’s been moved now on a whirlwind tour of the eastern seaboard, heading South. Overnights in Virginia, South Carolina.   
  
    SHIELD was nervous when they spent so long in Atlanta, long enough that they started calling in the regional field office to start the prepwork for an incursion at the hotel where they’d stayed for almost a day.  
  
    “Miami,” Sitwell says confidently, “Port City, a nice long trip to wherever the Boss is set up. Whoever that is.”  
  
    “All the movement was to buy time.” Rogers asks, and Kate wonders how much of the conversation is actually for her benefit, because that just seems like something they’d do. State the obvious for those learning.  
  
    “Bring up the map of where they stopped,” Natasha says, and while SHIELD doesn’t have JARVIS, man, shit’s still impressive. A map appears, with the path taken by Charlie’s kidnappers. “Overlay police blotter activity, not including domestics, known arrests or anything with local suspects.” As the display changes, Natasha continues to narrow down criminal activity until Stark interrupts.  
  
    “Zoom in on their South Carolina sojourn and,” he hits a point on the map, “Bring up the police report here.” He must only take moments to read the report, skimming as he goes, “Right. We used to have a supplier here, didn’t need them after we switched gears. They weren’t happy, but they picked up a lot more business with less savory types. They make targeting systems.”  
  
    And people start talking loudly and all at once, and she can’t really follow all of the conversations. Clint is arguing with Rogers about angles and intercepts, Stark and Natasha almost rationally discuss the importance of various locations and wild speculation about why they spent so long in Atlanta.       
  
    If this is how planning and tactical things actually happen, well, Kate’s taking notes, because damn, if she’s ever on a team they are not going to argue and bicker and be idiots like this.  
 

* * *

  
Miami is hot, humid and possibly threatened by a hurricane. Clint’s pretty sure that describes late summer in America’s Wang no matter what year it is, but it’s extra true this year. If he had been paying attention to the weather, he would have realized that coming into Miami with the purpose of being a sniper right now was a stupid idea.  
  
“I feel useless,” Kate says, back of the van just waiting as the heavy hitters start scoping out the warehouse, “This is not helping.”  
  
The wind is roughly a million miles per hour, and inconsistent aside. They both did test fires, and for the first time, accepted that they were no where near their marks. They’d be no use unless they were inside.  
  
“We wouldn’t be able to get a good shot in from anywhere. Bow or Gun. Let Tasha figure out a way in, and we’ll be the backup. You know they’ll need backup.”  
  
Kate raises her eyebrows, “Yeah, sure Clint. It’s not one of your plans. Theirs will probably actually work.”  
  
“Hey, give me some credit.”  
  
“Of course. Clint, your plan of me putting a tracker into your brother was magnificent. Worked perfectly. A+ job.” She gives him a thumbs up.  
  
“That was actually mostly Natasha’s. She came up with it.” Clint argues. Why is he a fighting with a teenager again? He looks over at Kate, and she’s grinning like a loon. That’s right, because they enjoy it.  
  
“They just let you carry it out, old man.” Kate counters, but the fights all out of her and they watch the camera screens waiting and watching.   
  
The footage is focused on Steve right now, and Steve is eyeing the warehouse like the solution is a shield shaped object. But Steve is a master tactician, he wouldn’t….  
  
Clint can hear the crash just as he watches Cap’s shield go flying through a window. Natasha looks so disappointed. Funny, Clint thought that he was the only one that got that look from her. It’s nice to know that she thinks all the people she works with are idiots and not just him.  
  
“Grab your shit, Bishop, they aren’t taking the subtle way in. We’ll be needed in the sooner time.”  
  
Steve starts barking out instructions to the team that’s already pouring through the warehouse window as Clint and Kate put on field gear. Natasha’s unlocking a ceiling access point for them, reporting that there’s  walkways all along a top level, as well as lighting catwalks.  
  
The warehouse obviously has a secondary usage as a theater or as Steve puts it, “a dance hall.” Kate rolls her eyes and tells Clint that she’s going to take Steve to an illegal rave or something.  
  
“Take him to Burning Man,” Clint grunts opening the heavy access door, not well oiled and he’s just going to have to live with the sound it makes, “he’ll either blush the entire way, or shed his clothes and join right in. He is an artist after all, artists are just plain weird sometimes.”  
  
They work their way through the door, and the access point runs straight to one of the catwalks, and bows at ready, start crossing it. Below them, there’s a straight up fight and while they both would really like to get involved, they have a different target.  
  
“You see them yet?” Kate asks, surveying one side of the warehouse as Clint looks over the other.   
  
Halfway across the warehouse, past a line of scurrying guards, goons and armed thugs is a clearly uncomfortably tied up Charlie. He doesn’t look too worse for wear, more dark circles than black eyes, but his wrists and ankles have got to be in horrific pain. Or they will, when they have circulation again.  
  
“Target acquired,” he motions for her to come over and runs his hand over his arrowhead choices, “Any thoughts?”  
  
“We could just barrel through.” Kate shrugs, “They’ll never see us coming.”  
  
“Now that’s thinking like a Hawkeye.” Clint grins and opts for a standard head to start, “Those three have guns. I don’t like guns.” In tandem they pull back on the bowstrings, and Clint’s showing off a bit with two arrows, and they release in synch.   
  
The guards go down at the same time.  
  
“Grappling hook?” Kate asks cycling through her quiver with just a hint of nerves. God, he loves that about her, how she’s still nervous despite being fearless.  
  
“Grappling hook.” He confirms, and they each adjust their next arrows, ready to nock. “Right up there, see that next catwalk? Hit it there, and drop just behind Charlie. I’ll cover you, get him untied.”  
  
They are really good at this firing together thing. And the thing is, Bishop really is fearless, she thinks nothing of  grapping hold of the rope and swinging down. There’s not a moment of hesitation, she’s just going to do it.  
  
Just like him.   
  
There’s no room for actual thought, because they are flying through the air, and Clint swears he takes out a couple of unarmed goons with his feet, and when they land, they are grinning.  
  
“Took you fucking long enough.” Charlie says, muffled quiet.  
  
“Hey, language.” Clint says as Kate cuts through the ropes with a knife that he’s not going to ask where she was hiding it. “We got here, and that’s really all that’s important.” And oh hey, fighting. He’s got to do that now. “Get him out of here Katie-copter.”  
  
“Oh, so you are trusting me to get him to safety now?”  Kate pulls Charlie to his feet and when he falls, she sighs and squats to get him over her shoulder and into a fireman’s carry.  
  
“Yes.” Well, yeah, because he’s right beside her, running and firing, and generally impressed with how fast she can run with a full grown man on her.  
  
“Then I thank you, and I think our friends are holding the door for us.”  And they are, the smash and grab having gone smoothly  and Clint gladly lets Steve and Natasha take over the Katie-watching and he guards the exit, watching their backs.  
  
He hears the shot before he can register what he’s seeing, and the door slams shut in front of him before he can run through it. The second shot he feels first though and he stumbles to the ground, more from shock than pain.  
  
“Hey little bro.” Clint looks up and well, this looks bad. Brothers, man, Brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a tease. I know. But it's been so long, and I wanted to get y'all something for being so patient.


	7. Chapter 7

His arm is useless when Clint tries to grip his bow or grab an an arrow, and the blood is starting to drip on his back, working it's way down by gravity. "Barney, if you wanted a family reunion, I know a much better place to have one." Being shot hurts, and it's never a pain he's gotten used to, despite a career practice.  
   
Barney lowers his gun, and with a smooth movement grabs Clint's arm, wrenching it behind his back. Well, if you can't scream in front of your brother when he's the one hurting you, who else can you. Barney pulls out a zip-tie, cuffs him tight, enough that his hands are going to start pinpricking asleep in just minutes.  
   
"You'll be good enough, I suppose." Barney says, "Can't keep the kid, might as well bring Zemo a different prize." His eye twitches, realizing he's said more than he meant to about who he's working for.  
   
"Aww, thanks big brother. Touching words of affection." Clint feels torn, he wants to give in to the white heat behind his eyes, drop his head and try to stop feeling it. But he also wants to keep challenging Barney. Barney is uneven as Trickshot, his paycheck being threatened. "So this is familiar. You know, I remember you cleaning me up after dad tried to knock sense into me."  
   
Clint looks down, still not giving into the pain of both the hole punched in him or the growing lack of circulation, but he needs to collect his thoughts and finds he doesn’t even want to look at his brother. “And you know, I’m not the prize you make me out to be. I’m the pissant asshole on the Avengers. You take me away, they’ll mourn but there will be someone else to take my place. I’m replaceable.”  
  
“The kid,” Barney —Trickshot, he amends, trying to put some distance. He doesn’t want to do shit to his brother, but he will to get out of here, “she yours?”  
  
“Really? That’s what we are going to talk about?” Clint lets out a bark of laughter, groaning at the end.  
  
“Hey, just want to know if I have niece to worry about.”  
  
That’s surprisingly decent, and Clint looks up at Barney. His brother is keeping a carefully blank expression, “Naw, man, no.  You know all of my loose ends.”  
  
Barney picks up Clint’s bow in both hands, and whatever affection he was beginning to show is gone, he snaps  the limbs.  Barney never broke his toys when they were kids. Barney looks around, calls into a comm that he’s ready to get out of here and quick.  
  
Clint swallows down a dry throat, “Here’s what I don’t get. We grew up the same, got beat the same,  how’d you end up on the wrong side of things?”  
  
“Why do you think it’s the wrong side, Clint? It’s all different aims, different needs. We all gotta work to get what we get, and if what I need to get is money? Then I go where the work is.” He shrugs with a sour smile, harsh and his teeth showing, “You wouldn’t spare a thought for me if I hadn’t started my work.”  
  
“Because you tried to kill me!” Keep him talking, Clint thinks, and he can feel the blood trickling down his fingers and pooling below. This is not going well, but the longer he can keep them here, the better chance that things will right themselves before….before Barney can spirit him away to join the, no that isn’t right, he’s out of the circus now.  
  
“All you had to do was keep working with us and it would have been fine, we would have made such a great team. Brothers and mentors, mad cash, bro.”  
  
“Fuck that.” Clint says, high in his register, head spinning. He’s not going to be able to fight the blood loss much longer. But if he’s supposed to be a prize, then he’s going to at least make it wherever he’s going alive. Fuck, he didn’t want to leave Darcy like this. If he were going to die, he at least wants to leave her a body to bury. Keep it….not the way he should think right now, not at all. “That’s not me man, can’t do crime no more. Can’t kill….”  
  
“Right, now you only kill the bad guys.” Barney laughs, kicking halfheartedly at Clint, but it’s enough to knock him over. Clint sees a flash of an arrowhead in the fuzzy background. The sight is just too common for him not to notice. He hits the ground with a thud. “You kill the men like me, baby bro. I’m not going to be able to let that go.”  
  
Barney stiffens suddenly, an arrow straight through his own shoulder, toppling over with a roll of his eyes. Huh, matching wounds, Clint thinks.  
  
“Oh my god, seriously. You thought Clint was my dad. Barton, you’re brother isn’t very bright.” Kate points to herself,  “We look nothing alike.”  
  
“Saving my ass at the last moment….” Clint smiles from the floor, “Just like a good Hawkeye ought.”  
  
“Whatever,” Kate jumps off the railing she was standing on, “I went old school on this one, boss. Did you know that coating an arrowhead with knockout drugs actually works? It’s like a damn movie.”  
  
“Katie-girl…..” Clint trails off, finally closing his eyes, letting himself give in to the pain.  
  
“Come on old man, let’s get out of here, I’ve in a wedding in a couple of weeks and I would like to outside of a briefing room for it.”  
  
**  
“Hey, hey, come on, don’t….” Kate hears Clint’s voice fall off as Natasha closes the door behind her, leaving him to the other compartment of the jet to rest alongside Tigner.  
  
“How is he?” She asks Natasha, biting her lip in worry.  
  
“Well, he tried to grab my ass when I left him before he passed back out, so it’s pretty normal for him.” Nat considers with a deft, indulgent smile, “He’ll live. At least until I get him back for that.”  
  
Kate covers her face with her hands. “I shouldn’t have left him alone.”  
  
“You had Charlie,” Steve points out. He’s in the seat across from her, already filling out a status report, or maybe doodling on the tablet instead, she can’t really tell because she’s still covering her face. “He was the more important asset at the moment. Barton can,” he lifts an eyebrow, Kate just barely make that out, “usually, at least, take care of himself. He lands on his feet.”  
  
“And when he doesn’t, he has more lives than a cat.” Natasha adds.  
  
Kate removes her hands, combing them through her hair. The rush has abandoned her, and she misses that thrill that runs through her. That scares her, that she can feel that lack like a phantom limb. She hopes she doesn’t need it, doesn’t become dependent on it — but it’s exciting.  
  
She wants to do it again, wants to save the day, wants to work with the team and with Clint and do it over and over and she’ll never get sick of it. It’s under her skin and in her blood. So she’s pretty indignant when Rogers says, “We are going to bench you for awhile.”  
  
Because she does need it. Needs helping, and doing something. Inaction isn’t her thing, “What? Why! You saw the way I worked out there. I kicked butt!”  
  
Steve keeps his eyes level, right into hers, “You did.” He confirms, his voice steady. It’s unnerving how steady he is, more so than the entirety of Natasha, because with Steve, you know he means it. “But it’s time for you to be a teenager for a little while. Experience isn’t just fighting and evading. It’s also everything you learn and take in. You’ll be better for it. So you’re benched kid. Go to school, get a part time job. Read to some kids.”  
  
“I already do that, and the soup kitchens.” Kate is not glum about this, it’s all part of the same drive to do what little she can. But what little she can is so much bigger now.  
  
But Steve is forgiving when he’s like this, Kate learns serious but pliant after a mostly successful mission, and that temper that Clint’s told her about stays far away from her impulse to speak whatever is on her mind.  
  
“Good. Every day away from the fight is another day we get to have you watching our backs. Remember that.”  
  
She will. It still sucks.  
  
**  
There’s not a good ending.  
  
Well scratch that. Everyone’s alive, even if Charlie is taking a few weeks off because of,  in his words, “I’m tragically suffering from stockholm syndrome. Being kidnapped was less stressful than grad school.” Clint’s going to recover because he’s had worse injuries than being shot in the shoulder, and he managed to get information out of Barney that will help them track down Zemo in the near future. Even if Clint’s not on that detail anymore.  
  
It’s not a bad ending at least. That’s what Darcy keeps saying to herself whenever Clint goes tight lipped and distant, that he’s just having a moment where he can’t talk about things yet. It’s not personal, it’s just who he is. She’s learned that, and he’s learned that he does eventually have to talk, but he can take a little time.  
  
 Bodies hurt, but things like that will pass, at least as much as they ever will, she suspects that her arms will always ache in the middle of the night, and be an early weather warning system.  
  
Clint plays with her hair, teasing the short strands between his fingers, in between lazy kisses. Darcy is trying to work, trying to reply to media requests concerning why some Avengers were down in Miami, invading a warehouse, trying to downplay Kate’s role entirely. “This isn’t going to work for much longer.”  
  
Clint draws back, enough to go still, “What’s not going to work much longer?”  
  
Darcy stops typing and puts down her laptop and takes his hand, pulling him back to her by his good shoulder, “Don’t be an idiot. Did all that blood loss make you lose brain cells too? No, there’s too many people starting to piece together Kate’s involvement with SHIELD, and that she’s probably not just your run of the mill intern.”  
  
“Keep her out of the light for awhile. In a couple of weeks, she won’t be the Bishop everyone is talking about, and then she goes to school.” Clint suggests, knitting his eyebrows together in thought before leaning against Darcy’s side, and dropping a kiss to whatever skin he can reach.  
  
“Oh right, her sister. Society wedding, that’ll take the pressure off of her at least.” Darcy grins, “That’ll solve itself then. Oh god, we’re not on the guest list are we? Please say no. Please say none of us are. I just cannot deal with that right now at all. Oh god they are money people, please tell me Stark isn’t going.”  
  
“The elder Bishops and the Starks don’t quite get along, so no, no they aren’t. And no we aren’t. Kate was kind of mortified at the prospect of any of us showing up. Apparently, we don’t know how to act in public anymore.” He laughs his way through his sentence, and it’s exactly what she wants to hear from Clint. Loose and relaxed and finally just down to him. No demon chasing him around in the guise of his brother.  
  
So she’s stupid every once in awhile, “Family is like that, get’s mortified on everyone else's behalf.”  
  
Clint inhales on a fast beat and holds it before exhaling, “For all it’s worth, Barney’s still my brother, we still got a shit parade of a life, we’ve just chosen different ways to deal with it. If he’d stayed a small time criminal, I could even understand.” Clint’s working his way through his words. They aren’t careful at all, and he pauses and makes false starts, but this is him all the way through, “Sometimes you don’t escape it, bootstraps aren’t real and there’s always something that drags you back to it. Unless….”  
  
Clint turns and buries himself against her, his breath against her skin and his words muffled by her body. Darcy’s hands rest against his head and his back, holding him tightly, minding his injuries, him minding hers. It’s kind of perfect.  
  
“It’s taken years,” he says, his voice vibrating against her, “But I got what I need now, who I need. Can I keep you forever?”  
  
“What, like now, like this?” Darcy says, “That’s how you are going to ask?”  
  
“If you want a big annoying production of a proposal, I can do that. I’m great at big and annoying.”  
  
“No, this is better.”  
  
So really, scratch all of that. It’s a great ending. Just wait until she tells her mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks.
> 
> This fic, and all of the Basic Bitches series, has been a real treat for me. And I think the stories I really wanted to tell within in are done. I won't preclude writing more oneshots or short prompt fics in the universe (which you can always prompt me for on [tumblr](http://www.twistedingenue.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, another WIP. But it is all planned out, all over except for the writing, which hopefully won't take too long. Lyrics and title taken from Iowa, by Dar Williams.


End file.
